


Sometimes Wish I'd Never Been Born at All

by aewriting



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Brief description of violence and illness, Gen, Homophobia, It's a Wonderful Life, Michael Guerin Week 2019, Racism, Tropes, Wild Pony (Roswell New Mexico), alien tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 17:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewriting/pseuds/aewriting
Summary: This trope is just what the title says.  Or, Michael wishes he'd never been hatched at all, as it were...***Day 4 of Michael Guerin Week: The Tropier the Better





	Sometimes Wish I'd Never Been Born at All

**Author's Note:**

> There are some brief descriptions of bad things happening (injuries, violence, etc.). Nothing is too graphically described, but please be aware.

Max has been dead for months.

Maria broke things off a week ago.

Isobel looks at him like he’s broken.

Alex… shit.

Michael takes another swig of acetone. Alex has moved the fuck on.

More acetone. Then some more. It’s not enough.

He looks at the alien glass in his hand, runs his new, perfect hand along it. It’s the nicest part of him now, miles better than his heart.

“I wish I’d never come here. I wish I’d never set foot on this fucking planet…”

***

He wakes up to the sound of knocking at the door of the Airstream. His head aches. “Coming!” he calls out. He must have passed out fully dressed. He goes to move the paper he uses to cover the windows of the Airstream, only to discover that the windows are bare. Huh. Moving stiffly, he makes his way to the door and flings it open.

“What is it, Sanders?”

Old Man Sanders just squints up at him. “How the hell do you know my name, boy?”

Michael scrapes a hand over his face. “Christ, Sanders, it’s me, Michael.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life!”

Michael laughs a bit at that. “I know your eyes are going, but come on…”

Sanders glares at him. “You’re trespassing on private property.” He sniffs the air. “And you’re a drunkard, to boot. Sheriff should be here any minute.”

“You called Valenti on me?” Michael says, incensed.

Sanders gives him a confused look. “Valenti? Sheriff Valenti’s been dead for over a decade. You okay in the head, boy?”

It’s only then that Michael looks around the Airstream. It’s bare and run-down, like no one lives here, like he just…

Appeared.

A prickling sensation goes up his neck. “What day is it?”

“September 20, 2019,” Sanders says.

Huh, okay, that’s right. He starts to hear sirens. Sanders nods his head, pleased. “That’ll be Thomas now.”

A tall man exits the first cruiser, while a familiar blonde gets out of the second car.

“Cam!” Michael exclaims. “I thought you left town, but I’m glad to see you. Could you tell Sanders here that it’s me?”

She takes off her aviators, stares at him blankly. “And who are you?”

Shit. Shit shit shit…

Michael breathes. Okay, so things definitely aren’t right. Sanders doesn’t recognize him. Cam doesn’t know who he is. Some old white dude – Thomas? – is the Sheriff now. Valenti has apparently been dead for ten years. It’s the right date.

What could have caused something like this? His mind immediately goes to alien stuff – mind control, body snatching, influencing, weird tech stuff…

Weird tech stuff.

The glass, last night. His desperate wish.

“I never came here,” Michael murmurs in disbelief. “I never came to Earth…”

Cam is looking at him, concerned. “Let’s get you down to the station.”

***

He’s in his familiar cell. He’s had time to think, and he’s wondering if maybe this version of things isn’t a good thing, a better thing for everyone involved.

“Is Max here?” he tries. Max is dead in his reality, languishing in a pod. Maybe without Michael around, things hadn’t gotten so fucked up.

Jenna eyes him. “Max? Don’t know a Max.”

Michael wants to smirk at her, say some smartass comment. He refrains, just nods his head. “Never mind.”

Sheriff Thomas strolls in, makes a big show of unlocking the cell. “Well, Mr. Guerin, it appears you’re free to go. Sanders has decided not to press any charges. Says he just wants ‘that poor boy to get some help.’ End quote.” Thomas’s eyes narrow. “Can’t say I would have been so kind.”

Yeah, so Thomas is an ass.

“Thanks,” Michael says curtly.

Thomas leans in close to him. “Hey Guerin?”

“Yeah?”

“I suggest you leave my town. We don’t take kindly to drifters here.”

***

Michael goes straight to the Pony. It’s not a long walk. He doesn’t have a watch, or a phone, but he imagines it’s open already. From what he’s seen so far, he knows that something has happened, but he has yet to determine if that something is bad.

Because when he thinks about it, wouldn’t Max and Iz have been better off without having to worry about his sorry ass all their lives? Maria wouldn’t be pissed and hurt. His mom, oh god, she could be alive, maybe, and Alex? Fuck, maybe Alex never joined the Air Force, never went to war, never lost his leg…

He feels half sick and half hopeful when he sits down at the bar and sees Maria’s stunning face.

Christ, she’s beautiful. He’s always thought so. He wishes he could have held it together with her. There’s a temptation as he looks at her here to just pretend – to flirt, see her respond, do their familiar dance. Just the way her eyes are appraising him now, looking him up and down, he knows he could do it. It would be easy.

“Hey,” he says, giving her a slow smile.

She tilts her head to the side with a little smirk. “Hey yourself. What can I get you?”

“I’ll take a whiskey.” She nods. “And if you don’t mind, a phone call or two? I seem to have lost my phone.” Her smile falters just a little. “Both local numbers,” he adds quickly. You can watch me dial if you want.”

Her smile’s back, a little less flirtatious this time. “Sure,” she says, and directs him to a landline mounted near the bar. He dials Max, then Isobel. Strangers answer.

Is it possible that, when he made the wish, Max and Iz never crashed here either?

He sits down at the bar thoughtfully. Would… would that be bad? Without Isobel, Noah would have never been freed, Rosa would be alive. Well, alive the _right _way…

“Penny for your thoughts?” Maria says lightly, as she cuts up lemons. The sharp scent brings Michael back to the present.

“Listen, do you know a guy named Max? A woman named Isobel?”

Maria lays down the knife. “Hmm…”

“Friends of mine from around here. My age?”

“Can’t say I do, sorry.”

Michael takes another slow sip of whiskey. “Okay… okay. Um, how about a woman named Liz?”

“Liz…” Maria says the name slowly.

“Yeah, Liz,” Michael says. “Liz Ortecho?”

“Oh my god,” Maria mutters, half to herself. She gives a little shake of her head.

“What?” Michael asks, alarmed.

“What did you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t.” Michael sticks out a hand. “It’s Michael, Michael Guerin.” Maria looks at the offered hand for a long moment before reaching out and shaking it.

“Okay, Michael…” She gives him an odd look. “Liz hasn’t lived here since we were, like, 14. I… I have no idea where she is now.”

“What… what happened?”

Maria’s once-open face is now wary. She glances around quickly.

“Maria, please,” he says.

She looks startled, backs up. “I never told you my name.”

Michael drops his head. Shit. It’s still early, and there are only two other people at the bar. “Look,” he says, voice low. “I’m sorry to lay this on you, DeLuca, but something weird has happened to me, and I need your help to figure it out.”

Her expression gets even more closed off, and she pulls back. “If you’re about to say something gross, or, like, sexual, then you can just leave _right_ now.”

Michael huffs a little breath, “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” He takes a deep breath and decides to just be direct. Be direct, ha… it’s what he should have done with her in his reality.

“You see, I woke up this morning, and I wasn’t where I should be.” She’s staring at him, confused. “Like, it wasn’t my reality. I… I made a wish last night. In _my _reality. That I’d never,um…" The alien reveal, on top of all this might be too much, he thinks. "That, that I'd never been born.” She bites her lip. “I’m, I’m not suicidal or anything," he clarifies, "but… but I’ve just been through a lot of shit, and in my reality we were friends… um, more than friends, actually…” She’s backing away from him. “But not anymore, because I fucked things up, like, _well _before we even started dating, and…” He sees her reaching under the bar toward where she keeps the pepper spray. “Shit, Maria, please don’t get me with the spray. I _know _I sound insane, but I think my wish came true, and that now I’m in a reality where I was never, um, here. And I just need some answers so I can see if things are actually better here.” Her hands are still under the bar. “And if they are, well, you’ll never see me again. I won’t, like, linger here and just mess up everyone’s lives again, okay?” He sounds absolutely batshit, and he knows it. “I… I really did know you well, in my reality. I can prove it, if you want.”

“What? How?”

Michael looks at her. “You have three little birth marks, on your left…” he gestures toward her left breast. She gapes at him. “Yeah. Your necklace is from your mom. It’s been in your family for years, keeps you safe.” Maria’s hands clutch at her necklace, and at least she’s not gripping the pepper spray any more. “Should I keep going?”

Maria’s brow is furrowed. “No, no,” she says quickly. Her face is scrunched up, and she’s staring at him. “Suppose I went out on an _enormous _limb and decided to believe you.” She crosses her arms. “What would you want to know?”

“I guess first, I’d want to know, um, are you happy here?”

She’s staring at him. “What? Am I happy?”

“Yeah, you know…” His shoulders slump a little. “I… I think I just wished myself away, and I want to know that it was worth it. That things really are better without me. So far, I just don’t have enough evidence either way.” There’s still confusion on her face, but a hint of pity, too. Michael hates it. “Where I’m from, you owned the Pony. Your mom, she was sick, though. I know things were tough for you.”

Maria’s mouth twists a bit. “It… it sounds like things are pretty similar here, honestly.”

Michael nods a bit, looks at her sadly. “I’m sorry about Mimi.”

Maria ducks her head. Sniffs. “Ask me something else. Please,” she says quietly.

Michael clears his throat. “Okay. Um, back to Liz, then. What happened to her?”

Maria pulls up a stool on her side of the bar, sits down, and looks at Michael. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this shit. I mean, you sound insane, but, just the fact that you know her name?” She shakes her head. “It was right after Thomas became the Sheriff.” Her eyes narrow. “He’s a racist asshole. It was right after Jim Valenti died – he was the Sheriff before Thomas. His death was real sudden – “

“Cancer?” Michael interrupts, knowing what he’s going to hear and fearing it all the same.

“Yes,” Maria says quietly.

“Super fast acting?”

“Yes, yes,” Maria says. “Your, um, reality too?”

Michael nods. “Happened later, though, just a few years ago.” His mind is going. The alien got him here, too. So there was definitely still a crash, definitely still aliens, right? But he wasn’t among them. Were Max and Iz? And Jesse still used an alien to kill Jim, but even earlier, why?

“Huh.” Maria gives him a considering look, then continues. “Anyway, there was a special election. Jim’s wife ran, but Thomas opposed her on this ridiculous anti-immigrant platform, and as soon as he won he just started cracking down. Liz’s dad – “

“Arturo, yeah. Sweetest man.”

“Yeah.” Maria shakes her head. “Thomas decided to make an example of him, turned him into ICE and got him deported.”

“Oh my god.”

“Liz and Rosa, they were still in school, obviously. My mom and I, we begged them to stay with us, but they wouldn’t leave Arturo alone. They went back to Mexico with him, and that was the last I heard from Liz.” Maria looks down at the bar. “I still google her sometimes, but nothing ever comes up, nothing that’s definitely her. She was so smart, so kind. It’s still hard, not knowing what happened to her, you know?”

“I’m sorry for bringing it back up,” Michael says. It feels odd to him that there could be such a large deviation in this reality. Like, what part could he have possibly played?

On the other hand, if Rosa moved to Mexico at 15, then she wasn't been murdered by an alien.

“In your reality,” Maria says tentatively, “what happened to Liz?”

Michael considers the question. “Well… Arturo was never deported. He was still running the Crashdown. Liz, she travelled around right after we graduated, then became a biomedical engineer. She was up in Colorado for a while, then came back to Roswell.” He leaves out everything about Rosa. “Um, recently, things have been… tougher. Her boyfriend passed away unexpectedly.” It’s still hard for him to say that Max is dead. “You and her are still close, though.”

Maria smiles a little. “Liz was always so smart.” Michael nods his agreement. “Back in school, you know, it was always me, her, and Alex, the three amigos. God, we did everything together.”

Michael wills himself to sound casual. “How, um, how is Alex?”

Maria stills. “Um, Michael?” she asks cautiously.

Michael swallows thickly. “Yeah?”

“_Your _Alex…” Her eyes search his face, looking for _something._ “Was…” Michael doesn’t like her hesitation. “Um, was he attacked?”

Michael’s eyes close of their own accord. “_Fuck_.” When he made that goddamned wish, the point was for things to be _better_. “Yeah… damn. He joined up here, too?”

“Joined up?”

“Yeah, the Air Force?” She’s looking at him, disbelieving. “He was attacked," Michael says, uncertain now, "in Iraq. Lost a leg?”

“No, oh god,” Maria’s shaking her head. “_No. _Oh god,” she repeats. “Michael, no, the military?” Her head’s still shaking. “No, Alex would have never… No.” Her hand is at her mouth now. “His _leg?” _She looks pained. “Why would your Alex have ever joined the military? No… maybe he was different, in your reality. Here, he… he loved music, and riding his skateboard…”

Michael is cold all over. “Loved?” Past tense. She’s using past tense.

Maria’s biting her lip, hard. “Senior year, right before graduation, there was a break-in at Alex’s place. His family’s toolshed, actually.”

Oh god.

“Whoever did it stole a bunch of stuff and they… they…” Her eyes are welling up, now. “I’m sorry. It was so, so bad, Michael.” She closes her eyes, wipes at her nose. “It’s just… They never caught who did it, but… but Alex was there, and they just, just…”

Michael’s voice is cold. “What, Maria? What did they do to him?”

“They beat him. With a hammer.”

***

Maria closes the bar, after that. Sends the other two people home, locks up, turns the sign, and pours big shots for the both of them.

Maria’s nearly done with hers. “He’s in the same care home as my mom,” she says, not even looking at Michael. “He’ll… he’ll never be able to be on his own, with the traumatic brain injury, you know?”

Michael’s all cried out, and yet…

Maria just loops her arm around him as he shakes against her. “I see him there, when I visit Mom. I go see him, too. He… he’s peaceful, I guess. Like, I don’t think he’s in pain, but…” She’s quiet. “It’s hard, seeing him like that, and knowing how he was. It’s just really fucking hard.”

“It was his dad,” Michael says, finally. “You know it was his fucking dad, right?”

Maria’s mouth is set in a tight little line. “Jesse claimed he saw a guy leaving the scene. Latino. Sheriff Thomas latched onto that, of course, made life that much more hellish for everyone.” She sniffs. “Jesse was the one that helped get him elected over Mrs. Valenti. There was no way Thomas was going to investigate him for the attack on Alex.”

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“No.”

“That you _know _of,” Michael says, bitterly. Maria looks at him quizzically. “I love Alex,” Michael says. It feels simpler to say it here, to this Maria. Her eyes still go wide with surprise. “I… I was with him, in his shed, when his dad found us together. Senior year, just like here. His dad, he came after us with a hammer. Broke my hand.” Michael sees her looking, shakes his head. “My hand, it… it’s better now, and that’s a long story. But within weeks of that, Alex enlisted.” Michael looks away. “I don’t know what happened here. Maybe he was with somebody different, maybe not. Maybe he was just, like, by himself, looking at porn or listening to music, or like, doing a thousand other things his dad didn’t like.” Michael closes his eyes. “Or maybe that day his dad would have been out for blood, no matter what he walked in on. It’s not like he would’ve even needed a reason. He’s a fucking monster.”

“Poor Alex,” Maria whispers.

“Yeah,” Michael murmurs.

***

“So… we dated? And you love Alex?”

“I’m bi,” Michael shrugs.

“Okay… but, um, that’s not what I was getting at. Are you with him, where you’re from?”

Michael shakes his head.

“Why not?”

Michael gives a small, harsh laugh. “Oh, I’ve hurt him DeLuca, hurt him bad. You know how you were best friends with your Alex? Ditto for my reality, too.”

“Oh… _oh._”

“Yeah.”

***

They’re well on their way to drunk when Maria stills, narrows her eyes at Michael. “Those first two people you came in here asking about, what were their names again?”

“Max and Isobel.”

“Last names?”

Michael stretches his neck. “Same one for both of them. Evans. They’re twins. Our age.”

Maria looks thoughtful. “Twins… okay… yeah. She was blonde, he had dark hair?”

Oh no, there was the past tense again. “That… that’s right.”

“They went to middle school with me. Before, when you asked, I was trying to think of, like, customers or something. But no, I remember them now. They moved away in the middle of 8th grade, I think.” She’s frowning a bit. “Yes, it was definitely 8th grade, same year Liz left, but they left earlier in the year. We didn’t have a big class to begin with, so it was weird that three people left so close together.”

Michael relaxes a little, but not completely. “Do you know where they went?”

“No…” Maria says. “It was all really sudden. One day they were there, and the next day they just… weren’t.” She cocks her head to the side. “I mean, they brought in cupcakes for their birthday, and then the next week they were gone. I wasn’t close with them, but I remember even the teachers seemed surprised.”

Oh shit.

Oh fuck.

“Their, their birthday?” Michael asks shakily. “8th grade? And then they just fucking disappeared?”

The desert campout. The drifter. Without Michael there to help fight him off, to help dig the grave, something must have happened, they must have been hurt… or discovered, somehow.

And disappeared.

That was 15 years ago.

His mind begins racing. 15 years... Fuck, if Project Shepherd got them, that could mean 15 years of experimentation, torture, of god knows what. Are they in Caulfield? Another site? Dead?

Oh, hell, and now it makes sense, why Jim Valenti was killed earlier, in this reality. Max and Iz were just kids – he must have pushed back against Jesse, pissed him off, and Jesse took him out.

Michael’s hyperventilating now, and his heart is beating so fast in his chest that it’s all he can feel, all he can hear.

“Michael? Michael!” Maria is screaming.

“I’m sorry,” Michael sobs, to the world, to the universe. “I shouldn’t have made the wish. It’s so much worse now. I… I’ve been so focused on what I didn’t have that I didn’t see what’s still there, and I’m sorry,” he cries. “I’m so sorry!” His body’s shaking. “Please, goddammit, _please_! I _need _to go back! I need – “

The bar phone starts ringing. Then Maria’s cell starts ringing.

She jumps, reaches for the cell first. “Yes?” she says, voice trembling. “Oh… okay.” She freezes. “Holy fuck.” She puts her hand over the phone. “Guerin, _Guerin_… it’s the care home, it’s my mother. She says she needs to talk to _you_.”

The hair on Michael’s forearms stand on end. He watches as Maria puts the phone on speaker.

“_Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?_” Mimi’s voice sounds oddly calm.

“Mom?” Maria says. “_Mom_? Why did you ask for Guerin?”

“_Strange, isn’t it?_” Mimi begins. “_Each man’s life touches so many other lives._” It’s the same damn thing all over again. “_When he isn’t around he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?_”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Michael hisses.

“I don’t know,” Maria hisses back.

“_Strange, isn’t it…_”

“Fuck, Guerin,” Maria finally says. “She’s doing the movie thing again. She’s quoting ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”

“How do you know?”

“We used to watch it every Christmas. And I just googled it.”

“Right, right…

“Usually it's 'Independence Day,' but she's changed it up. Um 'It's a Wonderful Life,' have you ever seen it before?” Maria asks frantically.

“No.”

“It’s… it’s, god, it’s like the same thing you told me. The main guy, he gets shown what his life would be like if he’d never been born.”

“_You see, George, you’ve really had a wonderful life.”_

_“_Fuck… um, okay. Well, does he get back? I mean, he must, it would be a bad fucking movie if he didn’t, right?”

Maria runs her hands through her hair. “Yeah, yeah. He… he realizes that what he had all along was good. That his life, it matters.”

_“Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away? Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away? Don’t you see? Don’t you see? Don’t you see?_”

“I see, I fucking see," Michael gasps. "God damn it, I’ll be better,” Michael pleads. “I’ll be so much better. I… I’ll stop with the acetone. I’ll… I’ll work on me, I really will. I see now that, that just being there for everyone, it matters. It fucking does. I _want_ to be better. Not just for Alex, or Max, or Iz, or Maria, but for _me_. I won’t… I won’t throw it away. Just _please_ let me go back.”

“_Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings._”

Michael looks around wildly.

“_Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. Bell rings. Bells rings. Bell rings._”

Michael grabs Maria’s hand, squeezes it hard.

“Thank you,” he says.

He focuses on the old red fire alarm bell in the corner of the bar, uses his powers, and lets it ring.

***

There’s a ringing.

Michael shoots straight up in bed.

His Airstream bed.

Oh thank god.

He scrambles for the phone. “Hello? Hello?”

“_Michael?” _comes Isobel’s voice. “_I just… I just felt you. Are you okay?”_

Michael looks around, exhales. “I am now, Izzy. I am now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Fic title is from "Bohemian Rhapsody," by Queen.


End file.
